Enter Atari, a company better known for gaming.
Early options were hardware sequencers (like the Roland MC-500) or clunky software on expensive Apple Macintoshes. Both had major flaws: hardware was tedious to edit (pressing tiny buttons to punch in notes), and early Macs were too expensive for most musicians. cubase atari st
Today, a small cult keeps the hardware alive. You can buy an Atari ST on eBay, install a modern SD card hard drive emulator (like the UltraSatan), and load Cubase 3.1. The timing is still tighter than most modern computers without heavy optimization. Enter Atari, a company better known for gaming
No expensive interfaces were required; you just plugged your keyboard straight into the computer. cubase atari st